NaCL & CH3COOH
by Cyanide Lemons
Summary: Little girls are made of salt and vinegar and bad intentions.
1. Chapter 1

AN:/ I said I would never write an OC insert, and I lied. I have no excuse for this.

—

So here's the thing, ok? Here's the thing: real people in a fictional world stand out. A fully fleshed out being standing next to a plot point just ends up looking odd. It doesn't matter if they are the most boring vanilla person in existence, there's something about someone existing outside of a narrative that draws the eye.

This makes staying under the radar really annoying.

Yoko, no last name, pumps her legs as far they can can possibly go with all of her six year old strength. The academy teacher chasing her is luckily an ordinary civilian, and not one of the militarised demons masquerading as the shinobi force. She'll still get caught, but at least she can probably waste away a few hours first and get out of a couple classes.

"Come back here!" the teacher yells, in a stereotypical and cliche way, as if yelling that at someone running away has ever worked. Yoko rolls her eyes and pushes herself to go faster.

It's a good thing that the village is predisposed towards pumping out brainwashed warriors, and that physical education is mandatory and disproportionately intense for kids. She's probably in better shape than she ever was in her twenties. This is both pathetic for past her, who lived off a diet of 'I'll go to the gym tomorrow' and sad for present her, who still has the same dislike for team sports that past her did.

A dislike for teamwork coaching disguised as games, a dislike for propaganda disguised as academic education, a dislike for over cheerful teachers and tyrannical school policies. Basically, a complete and total dislike for the Konohagakure academy in general. And she's still just in the civilian section of classes.

She just misses running into a food stall, and ignores the startled curses in the wake of the almost collision. It gains her a few more seconds lead on her determined pursuer, but has the unwanted consequence of bringing even more attention to her small form darting through the crowded market.

The narrative, as if tired with the already generic establishing shot, reaches out and snags the back of her dirty shirt. She jerks back, breath knocked out of her chest, and ends up dangling in someone's hands.

"You're a little young to be cutting class, aren'tcha?" a wry voice asks, turning her around so she can see her captor face to face. The fact that the surrounding people go from worried to relieved already tells her who it's going to be, but she still scowls when she sees the green flak vest and scarred face.

A generic chunin grins at her and raises a brow at her disgruntled expression. Behind them, the academy teacher finally catches up, panting a little. She's always found it funny that as soon as someone is no longer being actively encouraged towards becoming a shinobi, they lose all their physical strength. Her teacher can't be more than five years out of the civilian schooling track himself.

"Oh thank you, shinobi-san. She's a real hellion," teacher-san says, smiling awkwardly at the man still holding onto Yoko by the back of her shirt. It's stretching the material, not that that matters all that much considering how old and worn it is already. She's basically living the orphan cliche.

"One of yours then?" generic shinobi-san says, before finally putting her down. He keeps one hand on her shoulder though, restraining her from running away again. She feels a twitch develop in her eye.

"Yes, we were doing the shinobi aptitude tests, and she refused. I just wish she would say why, instead of running off like this." He shrugs, fidgeting a little in place. Most civilians treat shinobi with a sort of uneasy hero worship. Complete trust, but with the vague knowledge that they could snap at any moment and eat their brains. Or something.

Yoko huffs, but stays silent.

"Not a talker, huh?" the shinobi asks with a laugh, looking down at her. Her frown deepens, and she has the urge to spit out a curse just to see the look on his face melt.

"She's refused to say a word since enrolling. The doctor say it's not a physical defect, so she just must not like it. Makes for some awkward classroom discussions."

She doesn't talk because Japanese is hard, and her brain is not wired towards speaking it. Or at least that was her excuse at first, now it's more that not speaking amuses her more than speaking would in the first place. She has a bet going on with herself about how long she'll last until she cracks. So far she's winning.

Also, it's easier to not say something that will give away her true maturity this way. Instead she just comes off as a really weird and maybe slow child. All good in her books, since it keeps her off of the list of those fast tracked into shinobi hell.

"Maybe I'll escort both of you to the academy then. It's always the quiet ones you need to look out for," generic shinobi-san says with a smile. Yoko looks at him with dismay, but her teacher looks relieved. Whether he feels slighted at the idea that he can't look after a six year old, he doesn't show it.

To be fair, he really can't. This is the third time this week Yoko has escaped the clutches of what she has lovingly named the 'murder camp', and every time he was the one teaching. Out of the four different teachers he's really the least experienced, which just makes him a soft target for her antics.

"I would appreciate that, shinobi-san." Her teacher smiles, dimples flashing. The other man's eyes glint as he smiles back, pushing her forward so she's sandwiched between both of them.

"My pleasure, but please, call me Katsuro."

She's got a feeling generic shinobi-san isn't offering out of the goodness of his heart, considering the leer he's aiming her teacher's way. She feels a mixture of amusement and disgust curl along her spin. Disgust because now that she's a kid again the idea of other people feeling sexual and romantic attraction is weird and foreign. Strange how without hormones in the way her own sexual identity has completely disappeared.

Probably a good thing, considering her age.

"Katsuro-san then, I'm—"

"Masao-sensei, right?" generic shinobi-san interrupts, looking charming and roguish and all those other romance novel descriptions. Yoko wants to puke, and appropriately makes gagging motions with her finger, still silent. It nets her a startled glance, but not much more than that.

"Oh, how did you know?" Her teacher is blushing, actually blushing. Yoko resolutely looks away from the embarrassing display and takes to watching the crowds as they wander slowly back towards the academy. She's still trapped between the two of them, which makes escape look unlikely. Having to stand two strangers' UST while stuck as a mute six year old is practically a form of torture.

"I have a genin that was in your remedial class last year, Yun-kun? He talks about you often." Her teacher's expression melts, and Yoko tears her gaze away again. Crowd watching, crowd watching. Not watching the really awkward flirting going on in front and behind her.

At the end of one street a white haired shinobi saunters by, causing Yoko to slide her eyes away and fixate them on the other side of the street. Habit has her looking away from any important character types, including those from the original series. The last thing she wants is to get caught up in a plot.

So far this has been achievable by being six, and also completely average in every way. Of course, being average hasn't helped her get out of the shinobi aptitude tests, but she's blaming that on being a very mysterious brand of boring. Like she said earlier, real people in fictional situations stand out.

The main comment on her reports always boils down to 'infamous for no reason'. People know her name, classmates try and sit next to her, some of them try to bully her, and even the shinobi recruiters pay attention to her.

So far, the low level awareness hasn't lead to any real excitement though, and she would rather keep it at that. Adventure sounds like too much work.

She's zoned out, and missed a chunk of small talk/flirting from the two adults, but gets pulled back in when generic shinobi-san addresses her directly.

"So why _did_ you run away from the shinobi aptitude test?"

She raises a brow at him and looks pointedly at her teacher, who chuckles awkwardly and rubs the back of his head. She silently seethes at the very character defining motion. It's like a huge red sign saying 'pay attention, I'm being sheepish'. No one ever used to do it when she lived in the real world.

"Ah, well. From what we've been able to gather from her written accounts, she just doesn't want to be a shinobi. She's expressed a dislike for all the classes dedicated towards showcasing shinobi careers and skills, and tries to have as little do with them as possible," her teacher says slowly, as if the idea of not wanting to be a shinobi at age six is strange and abnormal. Indoctrination at its finest.

"Why run away though? Why not just take the test but do badly?" She has to give chops to the guy, he's still talking to her despite the fact that it cuts into his flirting and that she's still giving no indication she'll speak.

Instead, she looks at him with what's quickly becoming a permanent brow arch and, for good measure, rolls her eyes. If she was going to talk she would chew him out for thinking that she's a good enough liar to not get caught faking a shinobi test. They would ask awkward questions like why she's trying to fail in the first place. It would guarantee forcing her to dodge recruiters again.

She thought about becoming a ninja for about a whole day when this body was younger, and she was just getting over the idea of living in a fictional world. Civilians are practically helpless otherwise, and the amount of collateral damage that happens just between two powerful shinobi is rather mind boggling. Considering how small the nations actually are, you would think they would have a population problem. Or maybe it's some form of population control, directly related to how powerful your ninja force is. If that's the case, it's shooting themselves in the foot, because the more powerful your shinobi forces the more farmers and blacksmiths and merchants you need.

But what does she know, her one class on economics was a hobby class.

So as a civilian her chances of surviving until she's forty are a lot slimmer than she would like.

She weighed that against the fact that she really had no desire to be a cog in a dictatorship murder machine, was predisposed towards not doing physical labour, and rational enough to know even if she did learn how to kill people and look fabulous doing it, she still wouldn't be safe from the rest of the world. She knows without a doubt that shinobi Yoko would just be like regular Yoko: average. She has no secret bloodline, no powerhouse legacy, no genius intellect. Instead of just being a civilian casualty she would end up a genin casualty, and probably die in a much more horrific way.

So in other words, fuck that.

Instead, she has a modest dream of owning a tea house that makes enough on the side through blackmailing important but non-threatening individuals to hire a bunch of mercenary type protection.

In short, she's bringing western style organised crime to the party.

"Going to take over the family business?" generic shinobi-san says, after a few more minutes of background noise. Yoko tsks, but doesn't blame him for the assumption. Almost all civilian children who don't get conned into going into the genin corps end up working in family shops or businesses. It's one of the reasons most non-clan shinobi are orphans.

"Ah, no. Yoko-chan is an orphan, which is why I've been pushing for the shinobi aptitude tests. As a shinobi academy student her allowance would go up, and she would be able to move out of the orphanage. I'm not sure she understands such thoughts of course, but—" He's interrupted when Yoko 'accidentally' kicks him in the shins. This nets her muffled curse and then a slightly guilty look from both of them, who seem to suddenly reason that talking over even a mute child is both rude and a move guaranteed to paint them as assholes.

"Ah, sorry Yoko-chan. Here, we've arrived," her teacher says, guiding her lightly so she's up in front. Sure enough, the looming building of the academy sits in front of them, glinting menacingly. Yoko gags.

"Well I suppose this is where I leave you, but if it's not too much trouble how about we do lunch sometime?" generic shinobi-san asks, leaning forward. Her teacher blushes, and turns towards him in turn. Yoko gags again and escapes their clutches, taking refuge in the slightly safer sanctuary of the school. At least class is almost over, which means she only has to suffer through a few more hours of repetitive and useless information before being released into the dubious hands of her caretakers.

Much better than sticking around and having to deal with lovestruck fools.

—

Later, hanging back while the clan kids and those with families get picked up, she thinks about how lucky she is that she wasn't reborn to a family. She misses her old one of course, misses the closeness of having one in the first place, but it makes everything easier. Lets her learn how to navigate this brand new world of hers without too much scrutiny. It also helps keep her from seeing the people around her as, well, people. She's not too sure how she would survive the narrative if it was something besides a narrative to her.

She knows that's an unhealthy mentality, but it also keeps her from breaking down in gibbering shock over her situation, so she's rolling with it.

Plus, if she was born into a shinobi family she probably would be feeling even more pressure to join the genin track, which would suck. They're already laying on the duty and glory really thick, as if six year olds can understand concepts like that. If anything, the main reason most of the kids in her class want to join is because it sounds more exciting than being a baker, and all the popular older kids are doing it.

Peer pressure at its finest.

"Yo, Yo-chan, Yo-chan," the kid next to her cries, pulling on her sleeve. If she was someone who had any sort of empathy for children, this might seem cute or adorable or whatever, but it just makes her wrinkle her nose and pull away a little. Her shirt is already stretched to high heavens, anymore and she might as well wander about without one.

"Yo-chan, come play shinobi with us," the boy cries again, when she doesn't answer him. She feels herself gag before she's even aware of it. Ugh, her two least favourite things; children and shinobi.

She shakes her head and tries to move away again, closer to the gate in case she needs to make a quick getaway. The boy huffs, as if surprised at her refusal. At this point she's not even sure why the kids in her class keep asking, it's not like her answer is going to change. Maybe because she never actually refuses—can't while being mute—they never get a clue. Six year olds aren't the smartest.

"You should join them, Yoko-chan. You won't ever make any friends if you don't play with anyone," a voice says from the other side of the fence. She looks up, shading against the sun, and finds herself faced with the teacher from earlier. What was his name again? Masa-something.

He looks like he's just on his way out, probably to flirt with generic shinobi-san again, and she scrunches up her nose and sticks out her tongue in response. He chuckles, and then crouches down to look at her more seriously.

"Yoko-chan, I hear you refused to do the shinobi aptitude test again. You don't have to become a shinobi if you don't want, but you should at least do the test so that if you ever change your mind later we can put you in the right class." She's shaking her head almost as soon as he starts, and his face falls some more.

"I've never asked, but is there a reason you don't like shinobi so much?"

Yoko stops her shaking and blinks at him. She frowns, tilts her head one way, and then the next. She has her reasons, has very good reasons, but she's not sure she has any that she can easily explain to what really amounts to a background character. It's not like he would understand the very precise calculations she did around future battles and survivability.

"Did…" he pauses, looking uncomfortable, "did a shinobi do something bad to you?"

Oh boy, now there's a direction she doesn't want this conversation going. She shakes her head vehemently, knowing if she doesn't he will need to make an enquiry somewhere. There might even be an investigation, since the village is surprisingly diligent with policing its own forces, despite the amount of them that get away with fucked up shit. The last thing she needs is that sort of attention.

"Oh, that's good. Then...why?" He looks legitimately confused, with the sort of kicked puppy look most people grow out of at age ten. She's not sure why he's so invested with her dislike of shinobi, but figures she can blame the narrative. In doubt, always blame the narrative.

A shiver crawls up her spine and her eye twitches to the right, landing on the shadows of the nearby administrative building. She forces herself to look back at the teacher in front of her.

Fed up with his ongoing attempts to get her to a) socialise and b) become a shinobi fan, she does something she knows will just make him even more confused.

—

Masao watches the young girl pause with a strange glint in her eye, and feels something pool in the bottom of his stomach. He's gotten to know her these past few months and he already knows that that look means bad things.

Yoko smiles at him with teeth, and then brings her right fist up, thumb pointing out, and drags it across her throat in an unmistakable gesture. Masao flinches back, and the young girl takes the opportunity to scamper by him laughing. She breaks out in a run as soon as she's passed him.

He's left standing in her dust feeling slightly disquieted. She's an odd one for sure, not even counting her supposed mutism.

"I see what you mean," Katsuro says, moving out of the shadows to join him at the fence. Most of the other children have left already, so it's just them. Masao smiles awkwardly.

"The other teachers say I'm seeing things, but I didn't fail out of investigations because I wasn't observant enough. She's...odd," he agrees, standing up.

Katsuro, a man he hasn't seen since that disastrous week when both of their teammates went missing in action, nods.

"Definitively more intelligent than she lets on, not to mention observant. Did you notice that she looked right at me before she ran off? I wasn't particularly hiding, but for a six year old, that's...unsettling," he muses. His scarred cheek twitches as he talks.

Masao chews on his lip, thinking.

"At first I thought it was just because she's so antisocial, you know, somewhat mature for her age. But there's something more to it."

Katsuro sighs and reaches into his vest pocket, retrieving a packet of cigarettes. Lighting the end of one with a snap of his fingers, he leans back against the fence and lazily puffs away at it.

"Does it really matter? If she doesn't want to be a shinobi then there's nothing to it," he says slowly, watching the skies. At his side Masao snorts.

"C'mon, you don't think I'll actually believe that, mister I-Read-Mystery-Novels-While-

Interrogating-People. Both of us are too nosy for our own good."

"So? She's six, Masao. You really think a six year old has some sort of big dark secret?" Katsuro shakes his head, but there's a grin on his lips anyway.

"I just wish I knew why, you know? She obviously would have some talent at it, if only as a grunt in investigations. And yet she already has formed a negative impressions of shinobi as a whole? Unless something happened…" He trails off, shrugging.

"Maybe she ran into one of the creepy ones, like an Uchiha or Gai," Katsuro muses, before flicking his cigarette out and straightening.

"Well, there's nothing to do about it but keep an eye out, make sure no ones harassing her or whatever. If possible, see about sticking her in something like a go club, see how her tactics are. Could be she's just a lot more aware than kids her age," he continues.

Masao nods with a sigh, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

"Thanks Katsuro-san, I thought I was going crazy for a while there. I'll talk with the recruiters, see if I can add a flag to her profile. We're in peacetime, so if she really doesn't want to become a shinobi there's not much we can do about it, I just think it's a waste." He clenches his fist and smiles wryly at the shaking muscles.

—

The one place that Yoko actually likes in Konoha is the civilian library. It's rarely used by shinobi, has a wide collection of topics and authors, and is blessedly quiet after a day having to be around crying children. The librarians know her in a vague sense, but are all too caught up in their own little dramas to bother her, so she gets to read whatever she wants as long as she doesn't stray into the erotica section.

Or well, try to read. Japanese isn't her first language, and even if she is able to understand it orally now, the written format is a much larger beast. The academy has some lessons, but for most of the kids they get most of their language skills from their family. At the orphanage there's just never enough time or workers to try to attempt something like that.

Which means her choices in reading material are seriously limited, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. If someone caught her with something way over a six year old's reading capacity there might be some awkward questions to answer.

She pulls down a slim volume with a smiling cat on the cover and finds herself a comfy seat in a corner. This week she's trying to learn vocabulary around animals, triggered mostly because she had seen a nin-dog last week and couldn't figure out what was written on its vest. She's not hopeful she'll find it here, but that's not the point. The point is to build up her language skills as fast as possible so that she can start reading more important things, like law and trade books.

Need to know what the system is before you cheat it, after all.

For the next few hours she wiles away reading children's book in the dim light of the library, only moving to find more or to sneak candy from one of the librarian's desks. People come and go, but no one stops to talk to her or even lingers too long near her corner, and she's thankful.

Maybe it would be lonely for anyone else, but the quiet is restful instead of deafening. She feels her tension drain the longer she twists herself into odd formations reading. She's settled with one leg flung over the back of the chair and her head halfway on a table when a shadow crosses her vision. She lowers her book and looks up.

A young, nervous face peers down at her.

"What are you reading?" Hyūga Hinata asks her, fidgeting in place and looking miserable with it. Yoko blinks.

So much for never interacting with any main characters. The young, very young, Hinata is wearing a purple dress and black leggings and almost looks like any other civilian child, if a rather shy one. The only thing setting her apart are her pale eyes and the quiet attendant right behind her, giving Yoko the stink eye.

Yoko, as usual, makes a snap decision based purely on spite. The attendant's disdain for the obvious orphan pushes her to do something rather out of character.

She swings her legs down so she's sitting in a somewhat more natural position and brings her book up for inspection.

"Oh!" the Hyūga heir whispers, weird eyes focusing on the colourful cover, "I haven't read that one yet."

There's an awkward pause as she says nothing more, looking unsure and nervous as she keeps standing there. Yoko sighs and moves over on the oversized chair, patting the seat besides her.

"Oh!" Hinata whispers again, hesitating for a second before scrambling around the table and up onto the seat. Across the table the attendant looks pissed for a second, before their expression smooths out into the default Hyūga poker face. Yoko sticks her tongue out at them, and then turns her attention to the girl next to her.

She's older than Yoko by at least a few years, but with the way she hunches in on herself she looks smaller. Yoko has the errant thought that the whole 'Kumo kidnapping' must have already happened, which is disappointing in a vague way. At least the girl is older than her regular classmates, and hopefully less of a hassle.

After all, if she knows the narrative, and she does, this small interaction will be the basis for future meetings. The last thing she wants is an annoying minion.


	2. Chapter 2

Yoko has the vague thought that it's pretty weird for the heir of a prestigious and pretentious clan to show up in a civilian library, but gets her answer relatively quickly after their meeting. Unsurprisingly, it comes from the attendant.

"Hinata-sama, this is rather inappropriate," the sour faced shinobi says, watching both of them read quietly. Hinata hunches down further into her seat, and starts the fidgeting that took Yoko volunteering a particularly colourful book on different kinds of fish for her to stop earlier.

"To-sama only said I was not to w-wander too far. The l-library is close, and has nice books," Hinata mumbles, not looking up. The attendant sighs.

So rebelion then, Yoko muses. A very passive, weak willed rebellion, but still.

"The complex has a much better selection of books for you to read, and the elders won't like you hanging out in some place so...civilian." It's obvious that whatever word the attendant was going to originally use, it was going to be a lot more descriptive than civilian.

Or perhaps civilian means the same thing as plebeian in the minds of the Hyūga.

Yoko snaps her book shut and smiles at the adult, in the way wolves smile at prey before eating them. The attendant, because they obviously have no sense and also because Yoko is six, doesn't flinch.

Times like this Yoko wishes she could talk. Well, she could, but that's no fun. She made the bet that she wouldn't, and there's no way she's losing it now. So she can't tear the attendant a new one, but she can make Hinata do it. Delegation for the win.

She nudges the girl and smiles at her in a supporting fashion, having to stretch muscles rarely used in the process. She isn't sure if she's just that much more of a cynic these days or if her new body is more predisposed towards the resting bitch face.

Hinata smiles back awkwardly. She seems relieved to find support in face of the still sneering attendant. Maybe if she knew why Yoko was being so nice she would feel differently.

Or maybe not.

"I like it here," Hinata says, after the silence gets akward.

Yoko nods and hands her another book, scooting a little closer. She's still not used to this world's code of conduct when it comes to personal space and touchiness, so she has to keep reminding herself not to be clingy with people. Of course, there's not many people she would want to be with here, but she's still used to using physical touch to communicate.

The attendant makes a noise of complaint, but doesn't bother trying to argue. In some fashion Yoko feels bad for them. They are obviously a branch member of some kind and probably feel resentment towards having to take care of the heiress. Not only do they have a freaky death seal they also have to deal with a shy eight-year-old who still gets more privileges than they do.

Doesn't excuse them for being an asshole though.

Yoko glares at them while Hinata is looking away and scoots pointedly closer. If the attendant is going to be pissy about the clan heiress spending time in a civilian library hanging out with a poor orphan girl, well, that's their problem.

"Are you in the shinobi classes?" Hinata asks quietly, flipping through one of the discarded books piled on the table. Quite a few of them are children shinobi books, because that's the majority of the selection for kids.

Yoko wrinkles her nose and shakes her head hard enough to give herself a headache.

"Oh." She doesn't sound disappointed, so much as sad. Yoko doesn't even want to wonder why.

Yoko has a fierce debate with herself for a second, the desire for a competent minion warring with her vow of silence. She's just realized how difficult it's going to be to communicate without speaking.

Finally, after a few seconds staring at the still desolate girl besides her, she sighs and tugs a bunch of loose colouring paper on the table towards her. Luckily the children's corner always has a stock of paper and crayons.

'I'm Yoko, what's your name?' She scribbles on one of the papers. Her handwriting is lopsided and messy, but mostly readable.

"Oh! I-I'm Hyūga Hinata, I should have, that is, it's nice to meet you," Hinata whispers, nerves colouring her voice again. Yoko sighs and tugs the paper towards her again.

'Hello Hyūga. I'm here everyday after class, if you want to read together.' She struggles with the characters that make up Hyūga, and she's still not sure she's written it right when she passes it over.

Hinata smiles when she sees it, so good enough.

"Can you not talk?" she asks curiously, and Yoko shrugs. She waves her hand in an ambiguous way and then pulls the paper closer again.

'They won't make a mute become a shinobi. I want to own a tea shop.' She struggles with writing her reply, frustration colouring her jerky attempts.

Hinata blinks in confusion.

Yoko huffs and shrugs. She's not sure how to indicate all the village politics and propaganda involved in the orphan education plan. Not to mention her own paranoia.

'How about you? You going to be a shinobi?' she writes instead, already knowing the answer. She wants to see if Hinata will think about it though, whether she has any other aspirations besides being her father's shadow.

Tellingly, the girl's eyes stray towards her attendant before she nods her head. Her expression somewhere between resentful and determined. Yoko feels her eyebrows rise and she grins, before she forces it down. So the young heiress isn't as pleased with her 'duty', but still wants to be a shinobi for other reasons.

She might, in any other instance, try and crack that resolution open. See about turning it on its head, fostering a dissolution with the shinobi corps that she honestly considers a mercy in the young aspiring nin. Of course, there's no way that a shinobi clan would let their heir become a civilian, so she shelves that thought for another time.

After a few hardships, a few bloody battles and bitter truths, well. Having a frustrated shinobi with political ties under her belt, just looking for a friendly face and no judgment could only benefit her in the long run.

"Hinata-sama, the time…" the attendant says tightly, eyes pinched. Yoko glances at the clock on the wall and surmises that the other girl is risking being late for supper if she stays any longer.

Sure enough Hinata startles, and then hunches down in sullen fear. No doubt afraid of her father's reaction to being late to a communal meal, and yet reluctant to leave a place she no doubts considers safe. After all, no one would look for her here, and since it is civilian owned it's also unofficially out of bounds for shinobi.

Yoko grins, and scribbles some more writing on her soon-to-be-filled pad of paper.

'We should read again sometime! I'll be waiting.'

The smile she gets in response could probably power the whole of Konoha's strangely utilitarian electricity board.

—

Yoko leaves the library with a tentative friend and a minion in the works. It will take years, and more emotional manipulation than she is used to exercising, but she's sure that it will pay off in the end. If nothing else, she now has a whole new stack of ideas and plans to go through, a nice distraction from the conditions of the orphanage and the academy.

Honestly, she had discounted the canon characters because, well, they were special in a way. Magnets for trouble and attention, and to a fault almost out of sync with the rest of the world. In a society that's so violent and obsessed with blood, so few of them seem to be aware that they are training to be killers, and not heroes.

Than again, she's not discounting the use of brainwashing in the academy's curriculum. They have Yamanakas for a reason after all.

All that said, a lot of the side characters are just that, shunted to the side and unimportant to the main storyline except in very isolated cases. What would the harm be in utilising some of their...more prudent benefits? As long as she doesn't start messing with the storyline or interacting with the actual main characters, the things she changes wouldn't do a lot. Even something as small as bolstering Hinata's confidence and independence would change, well, practically nothing.

And it's with that thought that she goes hunting. She's concerned herself with only herself so far, needing to gather strength and information and relearning how to be alive, but perhaps it is time she laid the foundation for the future.

She already has a list blooming in her head, a veritable goldmine of names and abilities and uses. From vague memories of merchants (used to justify plot missions) to background shinobi, she builds up a mental folder of identities. Of the newer generation she needs peers, friends and followers and people who, in few years, will be in positions of power or influence. Of the older generation she needs a mentor.

Twofold even. She needs someone to teach her of this world's economical situation, particular to her given dream of a tea house, as well as someone to school her on the pre-existing criminal community. As small as it is.

Most criminals are ex-shinobi, or else the very unfortunate. Two groups of people who luckily all gather in the same place. That is, Konoha's Red Light District. It's not actually a Red Light District, but it's close enough to suffice. It is also luckily close enough to the orphanage, since it's rather hard to be a successful prostitute (or for that matter, criminal) with small children getting in the way. Some of those orphans then get picked up by their families when they are old enough, put to work in whatever way said families make their money.

Yoko has always made sure to keep a wide berth from that sort of rabble, not interested in getting pressed into anything unsavoury. The sort of attention someone her age and gender would get from the petty criminals is not something to risk.

But that doesn't mean she is ignorant to the goings-on. It just makes her cautious.

—

Her first choice is an exercise in coercion, as well as being a practicality she should have thought about before. The meeting with Hinata forced home the knowledge that it's really frustrating trying to communicate without talking. And as a point of fact, it's also a lot harder to manipulate someone without tone.

Which means she needs someone to talk for her. A spokesperson, as it were. Maybe one day Hinata herself will be given that position, but right now she needs someone a little older, a little more secure. Someone who can walk down the dark alleys and do business.

And for that, she needs money. Which means she's going to have to resort to either petty thievery, or else press on someone's pity and gather money through odd jobs.

On one hand, getting caught red handed as an unsponsored orphan could spell serious repercussions or else attention of forces looking to control her. On the other hand, the other way is too slow.

She needs a steady, profitable venture that she can reap the rewards with in at least a year.

Not an easy task to be fair, or else the dark alleys of Konoha would be a lot less full, but not exactly impossible either. She already has information some people would kill for, literally, and an unassuming body that is easily overlooked in places she can gather more. She knows where the heavy spots for crime and corruption are located, knows the best spots for gossips, know who will loosen their lips with a little work.

She also knows that, despite what it might seem otherwise considering that she lives in a shinobi village, it is astonishingly easy to spy on the occupants. And, despite what she is calling 'real-world magnetism', the attention she gets as a real person in a fictional world is easily bypassed. All she needs is the ability to mimic the bland and vague background characters she passes daily. And even if that doesn't work, well, a strangely interesting young orphan is still ignorable.

After all, all the paranoid shinobi are looking for wolves at their door, and not snakes in their floors. And no one looks down when they can take to the skies.

—

Hinata watches her new friend anxiously from the corner of her eye, hands fiddling with the book in her lap nervously. Yoko is a strange creature, that she can tell already from just a week of knowing the younger girl, but she's also a welcome reprieve from her classmates and her family. She's quiet, for one, and Hinata hasn't even realised how much she needed that. Going from a house that's mostly clipped words and tense dinners, to a school that's loud and boisterous and, more importantly, chaotic, keeps her off balance all the time.

With Yoko she doesn't need to watch her posture or her manners or her words. With Yoko she doesn't have to fear stray kunai or bruises or not being good enough.

With Yoko, she can read and ask quiet questions and get smiles that hint at something more.

Hinata doesn't fool herself into thinking that the girl has no reason for letting her sit next to her and be nosy. Knows that for some reason Yoko is considering her just as much as Hinata is considering her in return. Knows that, despite the way Yoko keeps her shoulders relaxed and her smile open, if she didn't find Hinata interesting she wouldn't be there.

And maybe that's just another reason why Hinata drags her long suffering attendant here every day, as soon as she can. Because someone finds her interesting. Someone thinks she's good company.

And she doesn't know if that's ever happened before.

She's not really paying attention to the words on the page in front of her, so when the book is slipped out of her hands by a pair of smaller hands she starts a little and snaps her head to her side, where Yoko is pursing her lips a little disapprovingly. The pages have little creases where Hinata's hands have gripped too hard.

"Oh!" she whispers, suddenly embarrassed and guilty. She likes books, and tries not to ruin them when she can.

Yoko blinks, and then smiles again. There's a hint of a shrug in her mannerisms that Hinata can't quite parse. Suddenly determined to fix her mistake, and maybe to show that she's not as useless as she knows she sometimes come across as, she reaches for the book again and quickly glances to make sure that her attendant is occupied.

Sure enough, the tall form is leaning against one of the librarian's desk awkwardly flirting. Hinata wrinkles her nose and then turns her attention back to the book.

She tries to ignore Yoko's curious gaze as much as she can, and then pulls on the small well of chakra in her sternum, drawing it into one hand as she smooths over the pages.

She narrows her eyes and feels the burn in her fingers already, but slowly the creases and wrinkles flatten out. She's really just doing something she's seen her father do to delicate family scrolls, nonchalantly, but she already feels tired and worn out.

It's worth it for the look in Yoko's eyes, surprised and delighted and, just under that, calculating.

Hinata grins at her friend's wonder and then slumps back, exhausted. She lets herself have a few seconds to recuperate, even if such a small use of chakra should by all rights be easy for her. Neji already has been able to physically manifest his, after all.

A tap to her shoulder has her looking back, and she blinks at the page thrust in her face. She's used to her friend's use of the provided paper to talk, and even her inelegant way of throwing said writing anywhere it might get the most attention, but it still takes her a little bit to focus on the words.

'You can already use chakra?' is slanted across the white page. Yoko's writing has improved, but it still looks halfway to illegible.

"Not much, but Tō-sama has us doing the excercises for the Byakugan. I can hold mine for a few minutes," she responds, voice quiet. She's not really supposed to talk to non-clan about her training, but she doesn't think Yoko will tell. She has to stifle an inappropriate giggle at the thought.

The paper is retrieved as Yoko scribbles against it once again.

'Think you could teach me some things? Got a couple projects that could use some shortcuts.'

Hinata frowns, takes in her friend's rumpled appearance (part of her knows she chose to talk to the quiet civilian because of the way they appeared, carefree and disheveled and importantly, a little cocky. It reminds her of another orphan.)

"I thought you didn't want to be a shinobi," she asks.

Yoko shrugs, a look on her face that could mean amusement or could mean apathy. Whatever it means, Hinata knows she's not going to get much more of an explanation.

"I can't show you a lot, but I can get you a few of the beginner books. No one's going to know they're missing," she finally whispers, thinking about it. Something makes her apprehensive about letting her (smart, too smart) friend touch chakra. Especially if she doesn't become a shinobi.

But on the other hand, this is her first friend.

And the way Yoko smiles at her answer makes it impossible for her to regret it.

—

Masao finds the note on his desk on Monday, folded precisely and sitting innocently on the corner of his progress reports. He approaches it suspiciously, and habits from his brief stint in Konoha's T&I department have him running the few trap tests he knows. It comes up clean, and he hesitantly opens it.

'Sensei,

Since the academy doesn't have lessons in language until fifth year, would it be possible to use the classroom during free time for independent studies?

Thanks,

Yoko'

He blinks and laughs ruefully. In any other student, he would just expect them to come up after class to ask something like that. If a six year old would even want more lessons. But of course Yoko can't do that.

He pauses.

Yoko can't do that, but he has to seriously wonder why she would bother even doing this much. She spends less of her time at the academy then she does skipping, and when she is in class he always gets the feeling she's not paying all that much attention. She would be the last one he would expect to want 'independent studies'.

Or maybe that's exactly why she wants them.

He huffs out a breath and rubs his temple. It's pretty pathetic that a six year old is making his thought process this messy, and he guesses he should be happy he doesn't qualify to teach the shinobi classes because he knows the kids in their are even more of a hassle.

Even if he seriously thinks Yoko would do well there.

He pockets the note and resolves to talk to the girl after class, even if it will be more like talking at her. He sees no reason why she can't use the classroom during the free periods, if she wants to stay in school for them. Maybe it will keep her in the academy for the rest of the day as well. One can hope.

In the meantime he has a bunch of evaluations to look over, as well as the finished shinobi placement tests. A good quarter of his class is going to get shunted over to the shinobi class, only for about half of those to come back in a few years as they drop out. Although technically anyone can transfer at anytime, it's well known that the younger the better. Although there have been a few adult genin, they mostly stay there as paper pushers. Not much of a career in doing D-ranks.

He knows, if he wants to convince his students to try their luck as shinobi, he only has a few years for it. Just as he knows not all are suited to it, and he needs to prepare them for a life as civilians. He knows personally how much it will sting to have tasted chakra and shinobi life, and have to settle for the more bland life as a banker or a merchant or a teacher.

And he knows how much he wishes someone had tried to prepare him for it.

The first of his class come wandering in, knuckling their eyes and complaining about being awake, and he plasters a smile on his face as he stands to watch them enter. He genuinely likes kids, likes their innocence and creativity and even their brashness.

But he also knows his duty, and that means he will soon be shuffling off some of them to learn how to fight and kill and die. That's what it means to live under the influence of the Will of Fire.

—

Her first target is one of the older kids at the orphanage that she knows is being groomed to become a runner for one of the gambling dens. He's still in the stage where he doesn't really know what he's going to get into, doesn't realise the dangers or the rewards to being affiliated with criminals, and more importantly, doesn't have a sense of loyalty yet.

She comes to him with pocket change and candy and gets him to draw out a map of his runs. She writes that she wants to make a map of Konoha, and doesn't tell him what kind. She writes that she's scared to go to some of the places he's big enough to get to, writes that she wants to know the names of the business that he passes by because she wants to one day own her own and she can't figure out what to call it. She flatters his ego and deflates the scale of what she's asking, and she bribes him with meager offerings.

It's enough for a child. It would probably be enough for an adult too, to be honest. Over all that she hints of secrets she knows and can tell, if he tries blabbing. Writes something offhand about the monster on the third flood. He's just young enough to believe and just old enough to refuse to admit it.

He'll keep silent, at least for as long as she needs him too.

The second one is a little older than that, a frustrated sensei-less genin in the training fields. She pays him half of Hinata's copied chakra book for as much cast-away broken kunai he can find. He learns to walk on trees and comes back to her, begging.

She has him retrieve some files from the administration office that she won't be able to get access to as both a civilian and a child. He's considered neither.

She does the weeding for an old lady too poor to afford a D-rank mission pay and gets payed in half a pound of fish. She feeds them to the stray cats in her neighborhood and then attaches bells to the ones who stick around. On the bells she threads the small cameras she trades for a copy of the beginers sealing book she borrows from Hinata.

The woman she trades the book to doesn't ask why she needs cameras, and in return Yoko doesn't ask why she needs knowledge on explosive tags.

On the days that she deigns to show up for class, she uses her free period to write out her sprawling network in illegible rōmaji. Illegible because she writes it in French, but the equally illegible notes in actual Japanese probably don't help her seem anymore literate.

Ironically she's better with hiragana. That's what she's been learning at least, since most of the books are written in that format. It's also what she uses to communicate. One of these days she'll learn kanji, but today doesn't seem to be that day.

The main issue is that her penmanship is pretty atrocious. Something about the type of pens this new world uses. Makes it harder for the more fluid characters of the Roman alphabet.

She's trying though, both to practice her language skills and to plan out in more details her schemes. She uses the classroom because there's actually very little supervision when class is out of session, and because it gives her uncontested access to her classmates' and teachers' desks.

Slowly but surely, she's progressing.


	3. Chapter 3

AN:/ Word of warning, I'm uploading most of my stories to A03 these days since I don't have time to upload twice (and I like it better)

—

Two important things happen in the following months. The first is that Yoko gets sick, the horrible, not-sure-if-she'll-make-it kind of sick.

The second is that the Uchiha massacre happens.

These two things are maybe not as unrelated as she would like.

—

At first it's just a seasonal fever, low-level and more of a nuisance than anything. She has experience with migraines from her original life, and because of that she might have ignored the symptoms for longer than she should have. It's not really her fault, the orphanage workers are overworked and underpaid, and although technically Konoha has free health care everyone knows it doesn't actually work that way.

So she works through the muscle pain and headaches and the only real effect it seems to have on her is a rising irritability. Most people think it has something to do with the upcoming exams and leave her to it. Even Hinata keeps quiet after a few too many sharp-toothed smiles.

She's dealing with it, making sure to keep hydrated, waiting for the worst to blow over. She's dealing with it, until she very emphatically isn't.

That's not her fault either.

Because it turns out to not be a seasonal fever at all, and she's just lucky she was reading with Hinata when the other side of her illness showed its ugly head.

If she was one for gloating she would congratulate herself on recruiting such a good minion, since it's shaping up already to be a lifesaver.

—

Hinata is waiting in their designated reading spot when Yoko walks in looking like she's a step away from death. This isn't necessarily weird for Yoko, but usually it's someone else's death that her expression predicts. Hinata can't help the worry that wiggles in her chest at the way there's deep gouges under her friend's eyes. She's pale, paler than looks healthy for someone who normally sports a permanent tan.

But as she's done for the last few weeks she pushes that aside and greets Yoko with a soft hello instead. She gets a grunt in response and an irritated arm wave that trembles just slightly. Yoko has no time for worry or sympathy, and whatever is bringing her friend down isn't something she is willing to have others meddle with.

Some days Hinata wishes that Yoko would just get around to using her, like everyone else wants to. She knows her worth, and she knows she could make Yoko's life a lot better if only she asks. The difference in their social status isn't something they really talk about, but Hinata isn't blind either.

Instead she quietly passes over a scroll to her friend and pretends to not notice the relief when she sits down.

"Copied from the clan library, like you asked," she whispers, keeping an eye on her attendant dosing standing up in the corner. By now they've worn down the haughty shinobi into complete ennui and it doesn't even get an expression of distaste when they enter the library. Still, giving out clan resources is something her attendant would be against.

Yoko nods, flashes another of her mercurial smiles, and tucks the scroll into her pocket. Hinata hasn't asked why she needs information on obscure medicinal plants used for interrogation in Iwa territory, and she doesn't really want to know either.

In return Yoko takes out a slip of folded paper and hands it to her. Hinata feels her face blush as she snatches it out of her friends hand, carefully unfolding it to reveal a place and time, just like the last time. She tucks it into her yukata and pretends to not notice Yoko's amused glance.

'Still haven't talked to him, huh? Well whatever, I think you could have a better obsession anyways,' Yoko writes on the pad of paper she's taken to carrying around now.

Hinata blushes harder.

"He's not an obsession!" she hisses, frantically looking around. Shinobi-in-waiting shouldn't have obsessions, and shinobi clan heirs even more so.

"I just, I admire his determination…" she continues in a calmer voice. She does, is the thing. Maybe at some point she would have become obsessed with the way Naruto is so bright and untouched by the politics of the clans, or the way he's just as bad at shinobi arts as she is but so much more motivated to get better. Maybe she would have grown up with the idea of him as some sort of idol.

But that's before she met Yoko.

Yoko, who is just as untouched by the clans, even less so than Naruto. Who doesn't want to be a shinobi, has a dripping disdain for them that carries into all of her interests. Who is not very nice, but who looks at Hinata with something that could be called fondness.

Yoko is scary, and weird. Yoko doesn't care about Hinata's failure as a clan heir or her weird interest in things that are bright and cheerful and warm. When Hinata is crying because she doesn't want to learn how to trap and kill animals in lessons, Yoko is there with a sneering expression against her clan and a soft hand in hers.

She peeks out against her fringe and watches her friend pick apart the selection of books on their table. Today seems to be a geography day, shiny books on the elemental countries and smaller ones on the surrounding villages and towns.

Yoko's hands shake.

Hinata frowns, turning towards the younger girl. Sometimes she forgets that Yoko is younger, she's so mature, but watching her shiver in the big chair of the library makes it obvious. Hinata isn't all that sure how she feels about it. It seems almost wrong to think about.

"Are you ok?" she finally pushes out, days of worry coalescing into a knot in her throat. Yoko doesn't like pity, or sympathy, or any sort of empathetic response from those around her. But it's obvious at this point that she also doesn't have anyone to worry about her, no parents, no distant cousins. No friends besides Hinata.

Glassy eyes snap to her. Hinata feels the worry mount.

The shakes get worse.

"Yoko!" Hinata cries out, getting out of her chair and to her friend's side just as the seizures start. Behind them the attendant snaps awake and runs over, almost bowling Hinata over in her haste.

The librarians all step out of their offices, some with weapons drawn despite it being a civilian building, and a few walk briskly over. Down on the floor Masumi, Hinata's attendant, is already reaching out with green-lit hands, snapping orders to the worried librarians and ignoring Hinata completely.

Hinata watches this with wide eyes, heart beating loudly in her ears. She's routed in her spot, limbs heavy and immovable. There's a monster in her chest that's digging into her, trying to get out. For some reason she feels like she's been transported back to that night with the Kumo nin, the way he'd gurgled as blood dripped down his throat. The way her own throat had been restricted by panic, the rough hands forcing her eyes away from the sight but not before she saw, with absolute certainty, how easy it is for men to die.

Somehow she didn't think those rules applied to Yoko.

—

Things go quickly, a testament to Konoha's experience and training. Masumi picks up the still-shaking Yoko and forces Hinata into a piggyback before using a shunshin to get to the hospital. The librarians have already called ahead, and by the time they land in the gleaming room of the ER there's a medic waiting for them.

Hinata goes through a gamut of panicked responses. She clings to Masumi on the way there, grabs a hold of Yoko's hand around her attendant's even breathing. There's relief when they enter the hospital, the hope that maybe it will be ok now.

The medics work quickly, doing all sort of things that Hinata can't follow with charts and fluid lines and chakra.

And then they try to take Yoko away to one of the exam rooms.

That's when Hinata's memory gets a little blurry.

—

Hiashi is in a meeting when a messenger drops down from the eaves and kneels. He feels his eyebrow raise and forces it down back into placid neutrality. Being a shinobi clan leader means there's always interruptions, but usually they know better than to happen while he's dealing with the finicky and overbearing clan elders.

"Speak," he says after a few seconds of making the man sweat. The clan elders all look a variety of insulted when he waves them off, although none protest verbally.

The messenger straightens up and bows.

"Message from the hospital, Hiashi-sama. Hinata-sama and her attendant appear to have been caught up in an incident of some kind. The medics are requesting you come down to restrain the young miss."

Hiashi can feel every man and woman in the room blink.

"Restrain her?" he asks slowly, already rising from his seat.

"Yes sir, she seems to be in a large amount of distress and the medics are unable to get close enough to sedate her. She's created some sort of chakra field around her, a few of the medics, and a patient."

Hisashi finds he's unable to keep his eyebrow from rising this time.

"What sort of distress?"

—

The kind of distress that awakens the Byakugan, it turns out. Hisashi would be impressed, if he wasn't so annoyed.

"What even happened?" he asks as he gently pulls his daughter up onto one of the beds the medics provided. He hadn't even needed to do anything, as the amount of chakra she was using quickly exhausted her and she passed out soon after.

"They came in with a code 7-09 about twenty minutes ago, we were able to stabilise the girl relatively quickly, but whatever the cause of the seizures would have required more examination. Hyuuga-sama—protested the separation of an exam room," the tired looking medic taking vitals says.

Hisashi feels, once again, his eyebrows rise.

"She protested?" he asks incredulously. Hinata doesn't protest, doesn't fight back. You would be hard pressed to get her to even express a preference of food items. It's the thing he's been trying to train out of her for years.

"Quite vehemently," one of the other medics agrees. "She was in shock when she came in, it became obvious, and as soon as the girl was taken out of sight she quickly became agitated."

"Enough to awaken the Byakugan?" he asks rhetorically. Agitated would have to have been an understatement.

His eyes find that of the attendant, hovering just in sight and already bent in a bow.

"Report, shinobi," he snaps, leaving one hand on his daughter's gurney and turning his full attention to the one who really should have prevented all of this.

"If I may, Hyuuga-sama, it might be best to explain the incident elsewhere," the nin says, rising from the bow with such little hesitance that Hiashi is almost impressed.

"Very well."

He leaves his daughter in the care of the medics, a small contingent guarding the doors, and walks into the hallways with the attendant following.

The hall outside the ER is quiet, only the soft shuffling of steps of passing medics doing rounds audible through the walls.

"I would like to apologize, Hyuuga-sama. I was not aware of the impact the sight of the girl would bring about in Hinata-sama."

Hiashi hums.

"This girl, who is she?"

He hasn't seen the patient that brought his daughter to tears, to _protesting_. He would very much like to.

There's a hesitation on the part of the attendant that catches his attention. This whole affair has been singular, an annoyance and yet interesting at the same time. To make the well-trained second house shinobi hesitate means a lot: they expect to die young for their village without thanks. Very little makes them afraid.

"She is a mute orphan civilian Hinata-sama has grown close to, Hyuuga-sama. They read in the afternoons together. The medics say she had a fever that rose significantly in the past few hours and caused the seizures. She's harmless."

"Except for how she was able to emotionally compromise a clan heir simply by being sick," Hiashi points out, already turning for the door.

"I am going back to the compound to deal with more important affairs. Stay here with the rest of the guards and make sure nothing else happens to my daughter," he says while the attendant bows again.

"And—" he continues thoughtfully, "have the girl brought to me when she is healed."

—

The days pass with a haze of drugs and whitewashed walls. Yoko is with it enough to realise she's in a hospital, but the first few days she's not sure whose. Is this Konoha general, with it's tired medics and languishing budget? Is it's roots underground intake centre with its bloody instruments and blank faced weapons? Is it Orochimaru's lab with his twisted creations and lack of morals?

It's only paranoia when the pressure on your brain makes you see shadow monsters in the corners.

Luckily there's a few faces that pop up that lay those paranoid thoughts to rest.

"What did you do?" Masao complains with a worried look in his eyes, peering over her like some benedictine figure from past memories.

"We leave you for a few days and you end up in the hospital," Katsuro says with a grin, leaning against the door frame. Yoko goes cross eyed looking at him.

"S'not my fault," she rasps.

There's silence as two wide-eyed faces stare at her.

"You talked!" Masao cries after a few seconds of shock. He points a finger in her face that she doesn't even try to focus on.

"You talked! After years refusing to do so! Years!"

Yoko blinks at him, forehead scrunching down. She thinks back to the past few seconds and realises that he's right. There's the vague disappointment of a bet lost, but her brain is a little too fuzzy to grasp it completely.

"What d'ya expect? That I was gonna be mute forever?" How strange that out of all her body parts currently, it's her tongue that works the best.

" _Yes._ " Masao gasps out, hand on his chest. Behind him Katsuro chuckles, but even he looks rumpled. Yoko doesn't know why, she's only really interacted with him twice. Maybe she's just that famous, which, ugh, is going to be a pain to work with. Maybe selective mutism wasn't the best route to take to avoid suspicion.

"That's dumb. You're dumb," Yoko snaps out, wiggling to try and get comfortable again. Her whole body hurts.

"Well what else was I supposed to think?" Masao replies, looking put out.

Yoko thinks about that for a second.

"That I'm an antisocial asshole who hates talking?"

Twin flinches from the shinobi. She blinks at them again.

"Aww, c'mon, I live in the bad part of town, you can't expect me not to swear," she complains. There's a pillow under her lower back that's probably supposed to prop her up properly but only seems to serve as an annoyance. She tries futilely to fish it out.

"I take it back, I prefered it when you didn't talk," Katsuro jokes, ignoring Masao's glare.

Yoko nods.

"Yeah, me too bro. God, I have no filter right now, you could probably ask me anything and I would answer. Probably wouldn't be the truth, and you might feel bad about it later for the obvious ethical infringement, but eh…" she trails off, staring into the distance. She can't quite remember what her thought process was.

She really hopes she doesn't have brain damage.

"Hey, does anyone else smell that?"

"Smell what?" Masao lunges forward, hands moving to check her eyes. She's confused for a second, before she remembers she had a stroke or something.

"Naw, not toast. The blood."

Both men go still, and then Katsuro curses. There's the growing sound of yelling and rushing feet.

A giant bell chime rings out, deep enough Yoko can feel it in her bones. She has the inane thought that it feels like the bells of war, even though she's neither heard nor felt anything like it.

"You two stay here, that's the call for all active shinobi to report in," Katsuro snaps out, patting his pockets frantically before grabbing Masao by the lapels of his shirt and staring at him intently.

"Stay, ok?" he says into Masao's worried face.

Yoko rolls over and groans into her pillows.

"Kissss already. Or kill me now before I drown in the UST."

Katsuro is gone before Masao can even start to blush. There's a pause of a few minutes before a hand finds hers under the pile of blankets and pillows she's being swallowed by.

"I need to check on the other students, ok? I'll be back. Right back," Masao says, something trembling in his voice that she doesn't want to even try and untangle.

"Yeah sure whatever. Go get killed by whatever maniac is outside by being a stupid side character. I'm sure your death will motivate someone important into leveling up and saving the day," she mutters into the linen.

Masao is already gone.

Yoko rolls over again and squints out the window. She's pretty sure the Uchiha massacre happened at night, and she doesn't think Konoha is that oblivious not to have noticed it until morning. Which means either some other wide scale event involving blood is going on that canon forgot to mention, or something's changed the timeline.

She doesn't like either options.

—

It turns out to be option two. And it's the stupidest thing too.

She stares at the wall as two medics talk in hushed whispers outside her door. Supposedly the Uchiha massacre did happen at night, but the shinobi who were supposed to patrol that side of the village all came down with fevers a few days before. It's been something that's been going around, the medics say. No one knows how so many of them got sick right beforehand. The village is so stretched thin anyways that somehow it got overlooked. Some are calling treason and sabotage, but Yoko has the feeling Itachi wasn't even aware.

No, it's pretty obvious what happened when you take everything into account.

Yoko contracts Red Alley Fever, a virus that's found mostly in the poorer neighbourhoods and the red lights district, hence the name. It targets people with low immune systems, and most clan shinobi would have been too healthy to contract it. She's contagious for weeks, in contact with Hinata for weeks, who goes home to her giant household filled with active shinobi.

The virus has a high transmission rate. It mutates rapidly. When confronted with chakra-enhanced white blood cells it simply grows stronger. Starts attaching itself to the chakra pathways themselves.

One thing leads to another and a large chunk of shinobi come down with a fever that most wouldn't even think of. Active shinobi are wealthy enough they don't have to worry about a peasant disease. She might be the first transmission, the patient zero, but in reality what really doomed the shinobi were their insular nature.

It's a civilian disease. They are completely unprepared for it.

Yoko wonders what happened to Sasuke while the rest of the village was unaware. Was he catatonic in the blood of his family for the hours it took someone to notice? Was he awake but paralysed? Is he going to go even more off the wall crazy now?

She doesn't really care, she decides. She has no interest in Sasuke besides what his eventual betrayal will mean for the political and economical landscape of the elemental countries. Sure, there's some benefits for her if he never goes missing nin, but they're inconsequential when compared to the annoyance of dealing with the other villains of the story. The village gets destroyed more than she would like in the later chapters.

She wiggles down in her bed and frowns.

It might be smart to make her base not be in Konoha, actually. Eventually Akatsuki is going to come here, and she has no wish to get caught in that mess. Unfortunately, Konoha is also where she has the most information, and thus the most power. She can always gather other intelligence when she is in a better position, and more settled in her power, but trying to untangle another village's underground would be a pain without having that starting base.

And just because she is out of the blast range doesn't mean she won't end up as collateral. She never did pay enough attention to the canon to know which areas of the country are safer.

Not to mention that she just doesn't have time. She's a few years younger than the canon cast, and all the shit hits the fan while they're still teenagers. She'll have to have her empire settled by the time she's twelve to have the flexibility to move.

How troublesome.

The medics leave, taking their gossip with them. Yoko sighs.

She hates being sick. Not only is it interfering with her plans, she hasn't been able to feed her cats in a while. If she's not careful someone else will snatch them up, probably for something not as benign as spying, and she's grown fond of them. She would have to find someone to murder said thief, and she just doesn't have a list of contract killers yet.

And if she leaves the rest of the kids in the orphanage on their own she'll lose all her potential disposable minions. There's a very short window of time that she can manipulate them into doing her errands before teenagehood steals about all their respect for her.

She sighs again.

And she was going to talk to matron at that one tea house on Block A about an apprenticeship for next year. Now she'll have to wait until the panic about the massacre dies down and the civilians go back to business as usual.

She kicks the end of her cot and grumbles.

She can't even take advantage of the chaos since she's stuck in bed. There's going to be a sharp rise in crime in a few days once the high alert goes down and the criminals realise there's no longer a police force. She could be out there recruiting and advancing her plans, but the medics say she's not getting out of the hospital for at least a week.

Supposedly seizures are dangerous things, and they want to keep an eye on her to make sure she hasn't broken anything important. Well, anything more.

She kicks the bed again.

"Yoko?" a soft voice asks from the doorway, and she blinks up into the anxious face of Hinata and her attendant.

Yoko feels a smile spread over her face without any conscious thought from her brain.

"Hinata! Man, you've gotta get me out of here," she chirps. There's a part of her that enjoys the shock on both their faces, but the larger part of her is just happy she's able to get the words out her mouth.

She might have started her mutism from a place of tactical spite, but as the years went on she lost the knowledge that she could end it at any time. Part of her was afraid she's lost part of herself forever.

So she'll mourn her quiet anonymity, but maybe it's time she grew out of it anyways. She's going to be a crime boss after all, and it's going to be through the power of words. She should make sure she has as many of them as she can.

"Yoko?" Hinata asks carefully, stepping into the room. The expression on her face seems strangely fearful.

"Weird yeah? The medics say my language centre got knocked around a little. I thought it was just the drugs, but nope, I'm going to be chatty like this until I can relearn silence. Anyways, I guess I've gotta thank you and your babysitter for saving my life."

Hinata blinks for a few second before smiling wide. She trips over her own feet running to Yoko's side. She throws her arms around the other girl and buries her face into the tangled mess that is Yoko's hair. It's outgrown the shorn close style she prefers.

Yoko blinks at the affection as the Hyuuga heir starts crying into her shoulder, great gasping breaths of relief, some muddled words that Yoko can't even pretend to understand. She thinks there's a few apologies thrown in there but she can't be sure.

The attendant gently closes the door.


End file.
